Generations
by WriteChristineR
Summary: None of the craziness in late season five, early season six happened. April doesn't exist, Rory didn't steal a yacht and drop out of Yale. What if this happened instead?
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This is one of my favorite story ideas that I've actually started to write down. Hope you like it, review please!

Generations

Chapter 1

"Come on, pick _up_!" This was the biggest news she had had to tell her daughter since the engagement, and she wasn't picking up her phone. _She must be on the phone with someone else, otherwise it would have gone to voicemail by now,_ Lorelai thought. She had been letting the phone ring for ten minutes now, hoping to get her point across to Rory that what she had to say was more important than whoever else she might have been talking to. Lorelai hadn't bothered to call Rory on her cell phone, because she was obviously home if she was on the phone. She had to talk to Rory, and she had to talk to Rory _now._

Who could she possibly be talking to? Lane? Logan? Lorelai would have bet on Logan, given the opportunity. "Your mother is more important than your boyfriend, little girl," Lorelai said aloud, in an impatient, yet sing-song tone of voice. Lorelai could hear an annoying beeping sound on her phone behind the ringing, like someone was trying to beep in, but she ignored it, both because she had to get through to Rory no matter what, and she wouldn't let anyone's calling lower her chances of getting through by talking to her for one minute with which she could be trying to get through to Rory, and because she couldn't risk the caller being Luke right now. She couldn't talk to him until she had talked to Rory. The beeping sound had been there since she had started calling, and she was getting used to it, anyway. She barely noticed it anymore.

"Rory, hang up, this is important!" Lorelai whined, as if Rory was in her bedroom at fourteen, refusing to hang up with Lane. Lorelai wondered how long she would have to let the phone ring, and vowed not to give in until Rory picked up.

"Mom, pick up, you have to pick up." Rory was getting panicky now, she needed to talk to her mother before Logan got home. He shouldn't have been getting home for another hour and a half, but at this rate, she was starting to foresee herself not getting through for quite awhile. It wasn't like her mother to ignore her call waiting like this, which was clearly what she was doing, otherwise it would have gone to voicemail by now. _Should I try her cell phone? No, she has to be home, otherwise she couldn't be on the phone._ It had been ten minutes since Rory had dialed. She was hoping to get across to her mother that what she had to tell her was more important than whoever else she was talking to, because it was. This was the most important thing that she could remember ever having to tell Lorelai.

It wasn't like Rory to ignore her call waiting either though, and she could hear someone beeping through. In fact, now that she thought of it, someone had been beeping through ever since she had been trying to call Lorelai. _Should I answer it?_ No, what if it was Logan? She couldn't talk to Logan, at least not until she had talked to her mother. But what if it was Lorelai? What if the reason she hadn't picked up was that she was trying to call her? But what were the odds of that?

After a few moments, she convinced herself to answer. If it was Logan, she could see what he wanted, and act casually, not telling him any of what she was trying to tell Lorelai. She took a deep breath, recomposing herself in case it wasn't Lorelai. "Hello?"

"Rory, oh my God, you finally picked up."  
"Mom! I was trying to call you!" Rory replied, thrilled that it was, in fact, Lorelai.

"So you were trying to call me, and I was trying to call you? Great. Figures. Anyway, it doesn't matter because I'm talking to you now and I have something really important to tell you."

"No, wait, mine's more important, let me tell you first."

"No, seriously, this is important."

Rory interrupted her mother, and Lorelai kept talking. At the exact same time, they said, "I'm pregnant." There was a brief pause, than a unison, "Oh my God."

"Hon, are you sure? With Logan?"

"I'm pretty sure. And yes, with Logan, I'm not sleeping with anybody else currently. That's like me asking you if you're having Luke's baby or someone else's." Rory added, as an afterthought, "It is Luke's, isn't it?"

"Yea Rory. Unless…"

"Unless? Rory said, panicky. "What? Who else did you sleep with?"

"Kidding," Lorelai said, laughing. "Chill out."

"When did you find out?"

"Fifteen minutes ago, right before I called you. You?"

"Same. Did you tell Luke yet?"

"Not yet, I wanted to tell you first. Have you told Logan?"

"Nope."

"So, this is great. We're both pregnant, neither of us is married, and neither of us has told our 'significant other' yet."

"Do you realize that my kid's aunt or uncle is going to be almost the exact same age as him or her? Isn't that a little strange?"

"I'm sure it's happened before."

"I'm going to have to tell Logan. What's he going to say?"

"I'm going to have to tell Luke. What's _he_ going to say?"

"You win," Rory said. She knew that in all realism, Logan would probably take the news better than Luke would.

"Yea, I can see it now. 'Luke, you're gonna be a daddy. Whoops, now there's a big hole in the floor that happens to be the exact shape of your body. Where'd you go?'"

"That bad?"

"Maybe not. I hope not."

"Logan and I aren't even married yet. I can't believe this."

"Luke and I aren't married either, hon."

"You're engaged, though. You even have a date. June third. Lucky."

"Are you going to marry Logan now?"

"What? No. I don't know, maybe. I haven't even told him yet, so, I don't know. Maybe. Why are you asking me this now!" Rory was panicking a little at having been put on the spot.

"Sorry. You just made it sound like maybe, the way you were talking about how I'm getting married."

"Well that's not what I was thinking. I just… maybe I do want to marry him. Maybe I should, I'm having his baby."

"You don't have to though, hon. I didn't marry your dad. Don't marry him just because you're pregnant. That's a bad reason to get married."  
"I know. I just… I think I'm in love with him, I just wanted to wait until after we graduated. I still have, like two more years."

"Alright sweetie, you know it's up to you. Just think about it first, that's all I ask. Now, Luke should be home soon. He's going to come home early tonight and we were going to go see a movie or something. I have to tell him soon, and I really don't want him to find out because he over-heard our conversation. I want to tell him myself. So I'm going to hang up with you, and you're going to tell Logan as soon as you get the chance."

"He should be home from class any minute."

"Okay. Well, bye."

"Wait. Mom?"

"What?"

"Just tell him soon, okay? Don't put it off. You don't want to wait until he figures it out himself from all the weight you suddenly start putting on."

"I won't. You won't either, right?"

"No. I won't."

"Okay. Bye, Rory. Good Luck."

"Bye. You too."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Six fifty-two, and although he wasn't closing until seven, the place had already cleared out. After so many years, it still amazed him how quickly the diner could go from full to empty around closing time. Even Kirk had wandered out a few minutes ago, grumbling about how he didn't have anywhere to go on nights that Luke closed early.

It wasn't as if he did it often anyway, only about once or twice a month. He and Lorelai would go and see a movie or maybe rent one and order pizza, not a favorite of his, but Lorelai would usually let him order a salad, or at least order veggies on some of the pizza. He actually sometimes liked the latter better, not only because it was the only way he could ever get Lorelai to eat any vegetables, but because veggie pizza was actually good. Not that he would ever tell Lorelai that. Enjoying any type of pizza would completely ruin his health-nut reputation.

Luke sighed as he locked the diner door on his way out. It wasn't as if this day in particular had been much busier than any other day, but he was slightly more irritable than usual that night. People had seemed more annoying than usual, although he didn't know whether they actually were, or he was just in a bad mood. Either was very possible.

Luke walked to Lorelai's house like he usually did, because walking such a short distance was more practical and healthy than driving his truck. The eighty-five degree weather of August contrasted with the temperature of the air-conditioned diner, and felt nice on his skin. He had always liked summer best of the seasons, the warm weather and longer days provided more time to get things done. Besides, he found the cold unpleasant, unlike Lorelai.

He smiled as her house came into view. It was always a comforting sight, something that would never change, would always be there. Even more comforting was the sight of it since they had built the addition and improved the house itself. Finally finished, the sight of the bigger, better house was a sure sign that their relationship was reaching a place it never had before, it was, like the house, expanding, opening doors for more possibilities: soon marriage, and eventually, kids.

He liked the idea of having kids with Lorelai, but didn't want to think of it yet, as he still wasn't sure he was ready. Maybe in a few years, after they were married. He shook off the thought, not quite ready to prepare himself for that.

He walked up the stairs that he had walked up so many times before, and opened the front door. He hadn't often knocked before they were dating, so now that they were, it was unnecessary. He smiled as he heard her voice coming from the direction of the kitchen, obviously talking on the phone.

"Oh, he just came in," he heard her say. "I'm going to hang up now. Yea, thanks. Bye, hon."

"Who was that?" Luke asked her, smiling, all stress of work melting away at the sight of her and the sound of her voice, "Rory?"

" Sookie."

"Oh." Luke's eyes fell from her face to her hand, resting on, not a box of pizza or a stack of rented movies, but a picnic basket. "What's that?"

"We are going to have a romantic picnic dinner by the lake," Lorelai declared triumphantly.

"By the lake?" Luke repeated, confused. Lorelai didn't particularly like eating outside, she said there were too many bugs. Why would they have a romantic picnic dinner? He hoped it wasn't some obscure anniversary, because he hadn't thought of it. But he went through the important dates that he could remember in his head, and it didn't seem to match up. _A year from the first time we kissed? No. First date? Definitely not. First dance? No. First time we…? No, no, no. That's definitely not it._ _First skipped Friday night dinner spent together?_ That one he considered. He didn't remember the date of that one, and it was something Lorelai would celebrate.

"Yea, on the dock," she said, eagerly.

"Did you make it?" he asked suspiciously. Lorelai's cooking skills were not something to be trusted.

"Of course not. Sookie did."

"Good," Luke said, happy she hadn't ordered it from somewhere. Sookie's cooking was something he trusted, even liked. Despite her sometimes suicidal desserts, her food could even be healthy at times. Still, he wondered what they were celebrating. He didn't ask though, in case he was missing something. _Her birthday's in May, my birthday… it's not my birthday!_ He made a face, surprised he considered the fact that he hadn't remembered his own birthday. He was an organized guy. "So, are we going now?" he asked.

"No, it's too early," she said, as if he should have known that. "We have to wait until close to sunset."

"Won't the food get cold?"

"It'll be okay," Lorelai said, smiling like she had a secret.

Luke stuck his arm out in attempt to pull back the light blue cloth napkin laying over the basket, but Lorelai slapped his hand back as quickly as he had stuck it out. Immediately he stuck his hand out again to attempt the same thing. She didn't see this coming, and he pulled the napkin back in one quick, fluid movement. "There's nothing in here!" he said, half-smiling.

"We are going to watch the original _Star Wars_…" Lorelai said.

"The best one," Luke interrupted with a matter-of-fact smile.

"And while we're doing this we're going to leave the basket on the back porch. When the movie is over, the basket will be full of delicious food." Lorelai said this like she was telling a very young child a fairy tale.

"And how will the basket fill up all on its own?" Luke asked, humoring her.

"It won't, silly. Baskets don't fill themselves. Picnic elves are going to come and fill it with lots of good food. Even better than the food from Al's Pancake World."

"Better than the land of the blue manicotti? No!" Luke said, in a very sarcastic voice, remembering his last experience with Al's food.

"Okay, we have to start the movie now though, the timing's perfect," Lorelai said, ignoring the manicotti comment.

"Okay, okay," Luke said, letting Lorelai lead him into the living room. "These picnic elves… they wouldn't happen to look like Sookie, would they?"

"To some they might, to me they look like Arnold Schwarzenegger."

"The _Terminator_'s filling our picnic baskets?" Luke asked, able to counter one of Lorelai's obscure references for once.

"Maybe," Lorelai said playfully. "Or maybe it's Patrick Swayze."

"Isn't he dead?" Luke asked, as the two of them sat down on the couch.

"In _Ghost_, but not in _Dirty Dancing_. And if you meant the actor, he's still kicking. God, we have got to get you up on the references."

"Okay, can we stop playing guess the actor and start the movie already?" Luke asked, in mock exasperation. He was enjoying every minute of this sort of word game with the woman he loved most, but he didn't want her to know it. Besides, he really liked _Star Wars_ and wanted to get started with it, already.

"I guess… no, one more. Mark Hamill."

"Luke Skywalker," Luke answered instantly, unable to pass up a rapid-fire _Star Wars_ question.

"Harrison Ford."

"Hon Solo."

"I give up, you know your _Star Wars_."

"We'll do _Star Trek_ next time," he said, playfully.

"Uh, no, we won't," she said, a little too quickly. "You may be a Trekie, but I'm certainly not." Luke shot her a playful look, and she added, "And you're not going to do anything to change that."

He raised his eyebrows at her, then picked up the remote control from the coffee table and pressed play. They watched the movie they had both seen so many times before with eyes so wide, at least in certain places, than an onlooker would guess it was their first viewing. Lorelai supplied commentary often, and Luke pretended it annoyed him. In actuality, Lorelai's comments had a lot to do with why he so enjoyed watching movies with her.

The sun dropped low in the sky as the movie ended, and seemed to threaten to set without them. As soon as the credits appeared, Lorelai grabbed Luke's arm none too romantically and pulled him out the back door behind her. "We can't miss the sunset, that would totally wreck the atmosphere," she said, as she led him down to the docks a little too quickly.

Lorelai seemed to relax slightly once they got to the dock she seemed to be aiming for. She slipped her flip-flops off and laid them beside her, and dipped her toes, nails painted in a perfect French manicure, into the clear, green lake. She set the picnic basket down and nodded to Luke to sit on the other side of it. He sat down and folded his legs, "Indian style" as a kindergarten-aged child might say.

Luke pulled back the napkin, suspicious that he might find that the basket empty, as it had been before. It wasn't, however, in fact the food that Sookie had slipped into it while they were watching _Star Wars_ looked delicious. "Your elves really are real," Luke said as he took his first bite. It really was as good as it looked.

Lorelai rooted around in the basket for a moment and pulled out a single white candle with a pretty gold holder on the bottom. She stood it up, produced a match from inside the basket and lit it, creating a romantic, if cheesy, atmosphere.

Not able to contain his curiosity much longer, Luke asked, "So, what are we celebrating, anyway?"

"We're not celebrating anything," Lorelai said, seemingly confused by the question. "I just thought this would be nice. Going to movies was starting to get boring, so I thought we'd do this instead."

Neither said anything for a long moment as they continued to eat Sookie's delicious food. Luke could tell this wasn't quite what Lorelai had expected, in reality, it was slightly awkward. The romantic thing wasn't Luke's specialty, and Sookie's food was sometimes a conversation killer, simply because nobody wanted to stop eating it long enough to talk.

Luke glanced at Lorelai, who was gazing out over the water. Luke was no psychiatrist, or even much of a people person, but it seemed to him that she had something on her mind besides the lull in conversation. He considered the fact that, around Lorelai, there seldom was a lull. It had never been up to him to carry on the conversation when she was around, and the fact that she was being quiet at all told him something wasn't quite right. He was watching her, studying her face. She didn't notice. Maybe it was the soft glow of the candlelight, but her face looked somehow different than he was used to seeing it. Not in a bad way, he couldn't exactly describe it. She wore a blank expression, but somehow looked happy. Her blue-green eyes sparkled in a way that he had never seen them before.

"Luke?" Lorelai said, in a way that would have seemed out of the blue had Luke not been studying her like he seldom had before, mind completely lost in Lorelai-land. She turned to face him, her sparkling eyes boring into his.

"Hmm?" he answered, opening up the floor for her to tell him whatever was on her mind.

"I'm pregnant," she said confidently, never missing a beat.

Luke wasn't so calm. _What! She can't be! I'm not ready for this! How can this be happening? What?_ Instead of speaking this aloud, however, he took a deep breath, composed himself, and asked, "Are you sure?"

"Almost positive. You know, I still have to go to a doctor to get it confirmed, but, well, the strip turned pink."

Luke looked at her blankly for a moment, then, ignorant in the ways of feminine technology, said, "So… It's a girl?"

Lorelai laughed lightly, and then explained that that wasn't what it meant as Luke felt his face turn a similar color.

They talked for a little longer on the dock, watching the sun set. Lorelai assured Luke that nobody would need to know until after the wedding, except of course Rory, who, Luke was semi-relieved to hear, already knew. He would have expected Lorelai to tell Rory first, had he been expecting this at all.

"So," Luke said as the two of them walked back toward Lorelai's house, soaking everything in, "this is really happening."

"Yea," Lorelai said. "It really is. Finally."

In any other circumstance, Luke might have took the added "finally" to be strange, uncalled for perhaps, considering the fact that they weren't even married yet. Oddly though, he knew what she meant, they had known each other for so long, and he had loved her for so long, that it seemed that this should have happened long ago. "Finally," he echoed, and he watched a small smile form across her face, mimicking the one on his own.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

As she heard his front door open, her heart sank. She wasn't ready for him to be home yet. "Honey, I'm home," came his voice from the direction of the front door, in a fashion that made it obvious that he was mocking his own words. She appreciated his ever-light tone, but this wasn't the time, she wasn't in the mood. The circumstances weren't light, not that he knew that yet.

She had sat on his couch, pen and paper in hand, for the past hour and a half, racking her brain for a way to tell him. She had started writing a sort of speech, but she hadn't had time to finish it, let alone memorize it. She had continually crossed out beginning sentences, words, phrases, paragraphs that hadn't worked. They had seemed too formal, or too light, or too pre-written. The only thing she was now sure of was the opening, "Hi Logan."

They had agreed to meet at his house and go out for dinner, as it was a Friday night, and they often went out on Friday nights that Rory didn't have to go to her grandparents' house. This Friday, Emily had mistakenly planned a function that both she and Richard were expected to attend, so Rory was off the hook.

Her heart sped up as he came into her field of vision. She didn't know what she was going to say. But she was sure of how she should start. "Hi Logan," she said.

"Hey, Ace. What's up? You look tense."

She almost didn't say it on purpose, but there was really only one thought going through her head, and to her own partial surprise, she heard her voice say it. "I'm pregnant."

He considered her as if it had been a joke, and then asked, "You're kidding, right?"

"No, Logan. I'm not kidding."

He sat down on the couch beside her. "Then, are you sure?"

"Yea. Well, almost positive. I thought I might be, so I bought one of those EPT things and it told me I was."

"But those things can be wrong."

"Yea, but Logan, it isn't. I always thought I'd know, and, well, I just know. I'm pregnant. I'm definitely, really pregnant. Of course I have to go to the doctor's to find out for sure, but I'm pretty sure they'll only tell me what I already know."

Logan closed his eyes for a moment, considering what she had just said. _Wow._ He knew that had any other girl told him this, made the same exact speech as Rory had, he'd already be gone. But with Rory, it was different. He wanted to be with her, and maybe some day, have a family with her. Someday was now. He opened his eyes, and saw her staring off into space, not making eye contact. Not that he could expect her to, as his eyes had been closed. "So now what?" he asked her, not sure what else to say.

"I don't know."

"You don't think we should get married, do you?" he asked. He wasn't ready to be tied down, but then again, this tied him down more strongly than even marriage. Maybe it wasn't a bad idea. He was going to be a father, shouldn't he be a husband, too?

"No. Definitely not, not because of this. Getting married won't change anything, and it'll be obvious that it's only because I'm pregnant. I don't want to get married because I have to. That isn't the least bit romantic, and it's not… right."

"Ace," he started to ask, pulling her back down to earth, "do you want to get married?" He didn't ask it as a proposal, only as a question.

"No. Yes. Maybe. Maybe, but not because of this."

"Maybe?" he asked, feeling his face relax a bit.

"Maybe. I don't know. I…" She breathed out, and started again, more slowly, and a little more relaxed, "I love you. I want to marry you, I think, eventually, I just don't know if I'm ready."

"What's the difference? If we're going to be together forever anyway, what's it matter if we're married? What's it change? It just makes the whole situation look better, doesn't it? Like we're doing the right thing."

"I don't know, Logan. I just… don't know."

"What if I told you I was going to propose to you tonight anyway?"

"I'd call you a liar."

"How would you know I was lying?"

"The conversation, and then… it's too coincidental."

"Yea, but you wouldn't know if it was a lie. Coincidences happen."

"So, are you telling me you were going to propose to me tonight, before I told you I was pregnant?"

"If I was, if I had proposed, and you hadn't been pregnant, would you have said yes?"

"I don't know."

"Think."

There was a long moment of silence. Rory thought, and Logan let her. "I always thought I'd get married after I'd finished college," she finally said.

"So you'd say no?"

"Well," she said, following another pause, "Maybe I'd ask for a long engagement."

"If I had proposed, I'd have said I could live with that," Logan said, smiling.

Rory smiled, feeling that it wasn't necessary for her to reply.

At nine o' clock the next morning, Rory felt that she had given her mother significant time to wake up, and called her.

"Hello?" she heard her mom's voice answer. _Good, not a busy signal._

"Hi Mom. How'd it go?"

"Great. Well, not great, but okay. He was already sitting, so no big hole in the floor, which was good since we were sitting on a dock."

"Why were you sitting on a dock?"

"Well, I thought it would be romantic to have a sunset picnic on the dock, you know, the one by the lake."

"I don't know of a lot of docks in Star's Hollow that aren't by the lake, but yes. Interesting idea. You didn't make the picnic basket though, did you?"

"Of course not. Sookie did. There's nothing romantic about my cooking."

"So did Luke like it?"

"I'm not sure he did. Romance, he can do, but he didn't seem overly thrilled. I think he would have liked it better if he had set it up."

"Maybe. So how'd he take it?"

"Okay. He didn't seem too shocked, mad, anything. He probably was, but he didn't act it."

"That's good."

"Yea. He almost looked… happy, by the end of the conversation."

"Good. He should be. You're engaged, it's about time something happened."

"Yea, well, I would have chosen after we'd been married for something to happen, but I can't change anything now. How'd it go with you? How'd Logan take it?"

"Not bad. He was fairly calm, actually. He asked if we should get married, I said not because of this, but one thing led to another and… I think I might be engaged."

"You _might_ be engaged? How does that work?"

"Well, he was very hypothetical about everything, 'What if I'd proposed to you and you hadn't been pregnant?' that kind of thing. And I think I said yes, but I'd want a long engagement. And well, maybe we're not officially engaged yet, but I think we're pretty close to it, anyway."

"Well, that's good. I guess it looks better if you're engaged, anyway, not that that matters."

"It matters."

"Well, I know it matters," Lorelai said, considering how things had gone when she'd announced she'd been pregnant with Rory. "But it's not everything. It's not a reason to get married, just because it looks better."

"I know. But I really do love him. And he loves me. You know Logan, I swear if it'd been with any other girl, he'd be gone by now. He's not gone, he's here, well not here, but in his apartment anyway, and he's not going anywhere. I can tell."

"That's good, hon. Really good," Lorelai said genuinely. "Are you going to tell people?"

"Well, I'm going to have to. But not until I find out for sure. Just in case."

"That's logical. We're going to try not to tell anyone until after the wedding. Except you, of course. Luke was perfectly cool with the fact that I told you before him."

"You told him that?"

"Yea, why not?"

"I don't know, but why? I mean, you didn't know he'd take it that well, and he wouldn't have known when you told me, you could have played it like you were going to tell me today."

"I don't know, I just knew, I had a feeling, that he'd take it well. He knows you're my best friend, that I'd tell you the minute I found out. I think he'd have known even if I hadn't told him, and it's better not to hide things."

"I guess you're right."

"Yea. I might tell Sookie though, she'd be happy for me, and she's been through the whole baby thing recently. I think she could keep quiet until the wedding about something as important as this, don't you?"

"Yea, at least she'd try. You never know what might slip out though, and if Patty or Babette finds out, all of Star's Hollow will know by the next morning."

"I'll talk to Luke about it before I tell her."

"Good plan. Sookie doesn't already know though? You said she made the food basket for you."

"Yea, but I didn't tell her why… I just said I wanted a romantic evening. I think I told her it was the anniversary of something… I think I told her it had been a year since I skipped a Friday night dinner and we did something together… or something."

"And she believed you?"

"She did. Somehow…"

"It does sound like something you'd come up with."

"It does. I know myself well. So… what are you going to do about classes and stuff?"

"I haven't thought about that yet. Again, when I know for sure…"

"You'll figure it out."

"I will."

"Well, I have to go to work hon."

"I have a class soon…"

"So I'll talk to you later."

"You will."

"Bye Rory."

"Bye Mom."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Rory, how could you have let this happen? You're still in school, how could you be pregnant? You aren't married, you still have a lot of your life in front of you." Rory watched in horror as her mother stood in front of her, stern-faced, voice raised. She looked down at her stomach, enlarged in a particularly round way, then directly in front of her own to her mother's, which looked identical to her own.

"I don't understand why you're upset all of a sudden. I told you when I first found out," Rory said, heartbroken. Her mother had been so supportive, what had happened?

"Well now I see that it's actually true, it actually happened, and I guess it's just sinking in that you're actually pregnant. And with _Logan's_ baby of all people. You can do so much better than that. I'm surprised he didn't leave you when he found out."

"He wouldn't do that. He loves me. I love him too."

"Really? I'm not so sure."

"I am," Rory said, the confidence in her voice surprising even herself.

"Well, it's good somebody is. What are you going to do now? Quit school early? Drop out? Go to all your classes with a baby carrier?"

"I don't know Mom. What would you like me to do?"

"I'd like for you to turn back time to the day you met that idiotic buffoon and kill him on the spot. Or at least spit at him or something that would keep him from ever wanting to see you again."

"Well, it's a shame, but I've forgotten to bring my time turner. I left it back in the third Harry Potter book, and I just can't get it out. It's stuck. So do you have another suggestion?"

Lorelai said something, but Rory couldn't make it out. All that she could hear was an annoying, high-pitched tone in the background, and her mother's living room faded to the wall next to the bed in the apartment she shared with Paris. She let out a long breath, turned off her alarm clock, and quickly pulled back her sheet to reveal that her stomach hadn't enlarged overnight.

As she got out of bed though, she found her head filled with a few unsettled thoughts that disturbing dreams often brought. _Why didn't she yell when I told her? Is she disappointed in me for getting pregnant? Can I do better than Logan? Is he right for me? Why _didn't _he leave when I told him? Does he really love me? Do I really love him? And what on earth am I going to do about school?_

She couldn't answer any of these decisively at the moment, and she had to know the answers. Some, she knew where she might be able to get the answers, but didn't know that she could work up the nerve to ask. The harder ones she would have to work out for herself, and she didn't quite know how she was going to do that.

Rory showered and got dressed quickly. She picked up her cell phone and looked at the display, eight thirty. She had twenty minutes to spare before she'd have to leave for her first class. She dialed her mom's cell phone number, thinking that she might already be at the inn. She answered after a few rings.

"Hi babe. What's up?" her mom's voice answered, assured of who it was by her caller ID.

"Hi Mom," Rory said. Her heart beat faster than normal, she was slightly nervous and unsure about how to ask what she wanted to ask.

"Yesterday…" she trailed off.

"The day that will go down in history," Lorelai replied, apparently aware of exactly what part of the day Rory was referring to.

"When I told you…" Rory trailed off again, hesitant.

"Yea?"

"Were you… are you… mad? Because you didn't act like it, but if you are, I want to know." Rory's words began to come more and more quickly, until she was basically ranting, full speed ahead. "Yell at me or something, because I don't want for you to be mad at me and me to not know about it. You deserve to be mad at me for this, this is bad. Really bad. So yell at me, please, or something, because otherwise you're going to drive me crazy."

There was a pause, then Lorelai asked, "Are you done?"  
"Yea, I think so."

"Rant over?"

"Yes."

"I want you to get it all out before I answer you."

"It's out. Go."

"Okay, hon, I'm not mad. I'm not thrilled, obviously, but I'm not mad. I'm not sure this was the right time for you to get pregnant, but I know you agree with me, and wouldn't have gotten pregnant on purpose. Besides, if you really are pregnant, there isn't anything that can be done about it now. What's done is done, and I don't think there's any point in holding a grudge against you for that. If I were my mother, yes, by all means, I'd hold a grudge. But I'm not. I'm not going to fight with you over this, especially because, at this point, there's not really anything to fight about."

There was a pause while Rory took in everything her mother had just said. Then she spoke again, slowly this time, "I don't want you to be disappointed in me."

"I'm not," Lorelai said, almost sincerely. At this point, she wouldn't have said anything else. What else could she have said?

Rory seemed to sense this half-lie. "Yes you are."

"Maybe a little," Lorelai said, unable to lie to her daughter again. "But you're old enough to make your own decisions, and I know you're more disappointed with yourself than I could ever be. And I'm confident that you'll handle this situation as well as it could possibly be handled. I trust you, babe. And your kid is going to be so lucky to have you for a mom."

"Yea," Rory agreed, after a pause. "I've learned from you."

Rory drove home after having dropped Logan off at his apartment. It was a Friday evening, all of her classes were done for the weekend, and she was glad to be going home. She had just been to the all-important doctor's appointment, and the news she had received hadn't surprised her, but had verified her suspicions.

She was on auto-pilot, her mind somewhere far away from her body. She knew she was driving home, but at this point that required very little thought. She was pregnant. She was going to be a mother. She felt the tears stinging the corners of her eyes, but then she had a different thought. She was driving. She couldn't let the tears blur her vision. She vowed not to think too much about anything until she was home.

It was at this point that she realized that she wasn't driving back to her apartment, but she was driving home, to her real home, not to the one shared with Paris, but the one shared with her mother. Her mother had an event at the inn this evening, she realized, she'd have the place to herself until late that night.

She pulled in to her driveway as if in a dream, let herself in, went to her room, closed the door, and lay facedown with her face on top of her pillow. She cried. She let the tears fall and be soaked up with her pillow, the pillow that had played sponge to her tears so many times before. She wasn't even sure what she was crying about, she just knew that it was what she wanted to do. The thoughts that told her what she was crying about came slowly, one at a time. _I'm pregnant._ She cried. _I'm going to be a mother._ She smiled for a moment, unsure whether these were happy or upsetting thoughts. _I'm home from Yale without laundry for the first time I can remember since I started college._ She wasn't sure whether she was upset that she hadn't brought her laundry, or upset that she hadn't been home before without the ulterior motive to wash her clothes, but the tears kept coming. Happy tears, sad tears, tears that she couldn't identify, they all fell. They fell for nearly an hour before she found herself all cried out.

She lay on her back on her bed for a few long moments until she was sure she was calm, and then she went into the downstairs bathroom and splashed cool water on her face. It had always had a calming effect on her, and she was left with no more desire to cry. Now it was time to think.

She went back into her room and sat on her bed. Did she love Logan? She closed her eyes and pictured his face, thought of every kind thing he'd done for her, everything she'd done for him. She thought of how confident she'd been of this in her dream. She considered that a dream was a reflection of her subconscious mind, and realized that if she'd been so secure with the notion in her dream, it was probably true. She thought a little more, brought everything together, and realized that the answer was yes. She loved Logan. She thought of every dumb thing he'd done, every con to his character, and found that they didn't nearly measure up to the pro-side of her unofficial mental list. _I'm making pro-con lists without even realizing it. Wow, that practice really is engrained in my subconscious mind._

This answered another of her previous questions. She didn't think she needed to do better than Logan. She loved Logan, and she couldn't see this changing. He was the man for her, and knowing this, she felt a little more secure in the thought of having his child. She also knew he hadn't left her when she told him the news, as he might have done in another situation, because he loved her. This was good to know. With each realization, Rory felt herself calming down.

The only thing left to address was the question of her finishing college. She knew she couldn't drop out. That was all she felt she needed to know at the moment. The rest could be worked out at a later time. She thought that she would try to stay in class for as long as she could and then talk to her professors about taking work home with her. She was sure she could stay caught up with the rest of her classes and pass them with flying colors while pregnant.

Rory was aware of the sound of the front door opening. She opened the door to her room and went to meet her mother at the door. "Hi Mom," she said.

"Hi Rory," she said, with a look of vague surprise on her face that she didn't bother to voice. "You had your doctor's appointment today, didn't you? What's the verdict?"

"I was right," she said. "I'm really pregnant."

Rather than replying, Lorelai opened her arms invitingly, and Rory obligingly stepped in, and stood there, embraced in her mother's arms in the same fashion she had often been when she had been much younger. Rory expected herself to cry again in the maternal contact that often caused her emotions to open up, but she didn't. She didn't have anything to cry about anymore.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

It was almost hard to believe that she was celebrating. Her pregnancy was something that until today she'd looked upon mostly with dread or regret, never as something to celebrate. Nevertheless, Logan was taking her out tonight to celebrate.

She stared into her closet, debating what to wear. She looked at some of her favorite clothes, and the thought crossed her mind that they'd all slowly stop fitting her. In fact, most people had extra weight even after they'd had their babies, so she might not get to wear some of these clothes for over a year. It was sad in a way, but then she realized that as of now, everything still fit. With that in mind, she pulled out her orange halter sun dress and put it on. She looked at herself in the full-length mirror on the back of her closet door. It looked as good on her as it had the day she'd bought it. She smiled. _Not much of a baby in there yet._

She brushed her hair and re-did her make-up, which included nothing but putting on lipstick and a little extra eye shadow. Just as she finished, she heard Logan come in the door. "Hey Ace, ready to go?" he asked.

"Yea," Rory said. "Ready when you are."

"Great, let's go."

Logan looked nice. She wondered if they were going somewhere fancy. She hadn't asked, and he hadn't told her one way or another, so she'd worn something that could be seen as casual or as dressy, so where they were going didn't much matter.

They pulled up in front of a nice white tablecloth Italian restaurant. "Ooh, I like this place," Rory said.

"That's nice," Logan said, "But we're not eating here."

Rory smiled. "Then what are we doing in the parking lot?"

"You'll see." Logan parked in the lot, which really confused Rory.

"Logan," she laughed. "Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

He lead her around to the back of the restaurant and to what looked like a small barn or very large tool shed. Rory had been to this restaurant before, and had driven past it numerous times, but she'd never noticed this building.

Rory was surprised when Logan seemed to be heading straight for this run-down building. What was he doing? He led her to the door and opened it for her. What she saw inside surprised her completely.

The seemingly run-down building was nicer inside than even the restaurant. One table stood in the middle with two chairs, and candles hung from the walls as they had in renaissance times, but some kind of electric light must have been in use, because it was a little lighter inside than it would have been had all of the light come from the candles, yet it was dim enough to have a romantic atmosphere. Beautiful lace curtains framed a false window on each wall, large photographs in each one that when you looked toward them truly made you think that you were in Paris during the spring, London in the fall, some tropical island with a beautiful waterfall, or on the top of a snow-covered mountain, depending on which way you looked. It was certainly one of the most beautiful places, and probably the most romantic place Rory had ever been.

There was a bouquet of roses on the table along with two candles, place settings, and menus. Logan pulled out Rory's chair and motioned for her to sit down. She sat. "Logan, what is this? I mean, it's amazing, but what is it?"

"This," he said, "is the most beautiful place in Connecticut. Any more questions?"

"Well, yes," Rory said, "But I'll let them go for now." Just then a waiter walked in the door and asked to take their drink orders.

They both ordered drinks, then later their meals, and lastly dessert. Rory was about half way through a delicious piece of "Molto Mocha" cake when Logan got up from his seat and walked about three steps over to in front of where Rory was. Confused, Rory turned sideways in her chair to see what he was doing. To her surprise, Logan literally got down on one knee and took a small box out of his pocket, clearly containing some sort of jewelry, and it didn't take a genius to figure out just what kind of jewelry it was.

He opened the box anyway so that Rory could see into it. It was a ring, obviously, silver in color, although Rory assumed it to be white gold, with a not-big but not-small diamond in the middle, and two much smaller diamonds on either side. They sparkled in the dim light and appeared to give off tiny little rainbows when the ring moved. "Rory," he said, "I love you. I want to marry you. I don't care when, it can be in a week or in five years, but I want to marry you. Will you marry me?"

Rory was smiling, but felt the beginnings of tears forming in her eyes. Barely even having to think about it, Rory nodded. "Of course," she said. "I love you too, Logan. This is amazing. The whole thing."

Logan smiled. "That was the idea." They both stood up and leaned in at the exact same time to share the first kiss of their engagement.

"I'm officially engaged," Rory said into the phone as soon as it was picked up.

"That's great hon," Lorelai said, "but didn't you pretty much tell me that already?"

"But this is official. He proposed. It was amazing. It was in this little extension to that really nice Italian restaurant, and it looked like a run-down tool shed, but inside… you wouldn't believe how un-tool-shed-y this place was. Candles, and photographs of a different place every direction you looked, Paris, London, the Caribbean, snow-covered mountains…"

"It sounds beautiful hon, but couldn't you have waited until morning to call?"

Rory looked over at the clock beside her bed. The red light-up display read 2:30. It was a lot later than Rory had thought. She and Logan had gone to what must have been a midnight showing of a movie at the New Haven drive-in, although she hadn't realized it at the time. She had called Lorelai the minute she'd gotten home, wanting to tell her the news as soon as humanly possible. She hadn't considered that it could be past the time that Lorelai would be asleep. "Sorry!" she said. "I didn't realize how late it was. I thought it was maybe ten, in all reality I didn't even think it was that late. Go back to sleep, I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Thank you. And congratulations," Lorelai said just before hanging up.

She woke up the next morning with an uncomfortable realization: everything was changing. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but she'd never been a person that dealt well with change, and all of the changes in her life lately were huge, life-altering changes, not something minor, like a change in hairstyle or the color of her socks.

Not only was she engaged, which was undoubtedly a good change, but she was pregnant. She was going to have another kid, and not only that, but her daughter, the original kid, was both engaged and pregnant as well. That had to change things. That had to change everything. Rory would have a family of her own, and Lorelai would no longer be the closest family in her life.

Change brought upon too much uncertainty. She didn't like uncertainty. She liked certainty. She liked to know what was ahead of her. It wasn't that she didn't like surprises either, she loved being surprised, it was only when it came to things that could change her entire life, present and future, that she'd rather have a little forewarning about what was about to happen.

She wasn't ready for all of this change, not now, not all at once, and the even more agonizing thing was that there was nothing that she could do about any of it. Not really. It was the way it was, everything was going to change, for better or for worse. All that she could do was to hope that it was for better.

She got up, and as she was getting dressed considered that there was something she hadn't yet considered. She was having a baby, did she want a girl or a boy? She considered. It felt like the correct answer should be that she wanted a healthy baby, and that the gender didn't matter, but she wasn't sure she really felt that way. She immediately thought that she wanted a girl. Rory was a girl, obviously, and she'd turned out well. She knew that she could raise a girl already, there was nothing much to worry about. But then again, she liked a challenge, and a boy would be something different from what she'd already experienced. Although, raising a child was always a challenge, regardless of its gender.

She thought that Luke would probably like a boy more, he could teach it guy stuff, like fishing and camping and building things, which she'd never been much for. The more she thought about it though, the surer she was: she wanted a girl. She smiled as she admitted it to herself, then considered. Luke would make an excellent father to an incredibly lucky little girl. She genuinely hoped that the lucky child would be a little girl.

She knew she had to do it, but she was sure it wouldn't be received well. But especially as she was planning on continually living in an apartment with Paris until she was married, she'd have to tell her at some point that she was engaged and that she was pregnant. One or the other, particularly the latter, would be bad enough.

She decided on doing it that morning so that she couldn't put it off any longer. As soon as she was up and dressed, she left her bedroom to find Paris watching C-SPAN in the living room, no doubt waiting for Rory to get up so that they could go down to the cafeteria for breakfast, as they often did.

"Morning Rory," Paris greeted her."

"Morning Paris. Anything interesting going on in the governmental world this morning?"

"Nothing that wasn't going on last night."

"Mmm. Well, that's refreshing. I sort of have something I need to tell you, or a couple of somethings."

"Kay, shoot," Paris said, still staring at the TV.

Rory sighed and took the remote control from the coffee table and flicked off the TV. "They're both really… really big somethings."

"Okay, go," Paris said, turning and actually making eye contact with her friend.

Rory sighed again, preparing herself to speak. "Okay, well, Logan and I are engaged."

"Really?" Paris asked. "That's good, I mean, I can't say I didn't see it coming, but I sort of thought you'd wait until you were through college, I mean, being married and taking classes… not everyone can do that."

"I know, and I'm not going to do that," Rory said. "We're planning on a long engagement. We don't want to get married until we're both through Yale."

"Oh," Paris said. "Okay. Is that all?"

"Nope," Rory said, more calmly than she'd have expected. "I have one more. This one's slightly more earth-shattering."

"More earth-shattering than an engagement that's been assumed for over a year now? No," Paris said sarcastically.

"I'm pregnant."

Paris didn't respond immediately. When she did, it was about as smooth and sensitive as Paris was known for being. "What? You're joking."

"Why would I joke about that? I'm really pregnant."

"How could you, of all people, let that happen? You're not married, and I've always thought you'd be the one to be completely adamant about the whole abstinence before marriage thing. You still have two years of Yale ahead of you, and that's if you stop at four years and don't go for a higher degree. How do you have a kid and go to school at the same time, especially a school as good and as competitive as Yale? You're not going to drop out, are you?" Paris immediately jumped to the conclusion. "You're going to drop out. You can't drop out, I need to here, I need someone to push me, I need someone to compete with for the higher GPA or the better grades, otherwise I'll never make it. Neither will you."

Rory half-interrupted. "Paris, I'm not planning on dropping out. I'm going to stay in school as long as I can, then do whatever I can at home. There's a possibility I'll have to take a little bit of time off, maybe a semester, but it won't be a big deal."

"Well, how far along are you?"

"Just less than a month."

"Hm. Well, that basically sucks, but you'll do what you can, I guess. How 'bout breakfast?"

"Sure," Rory said, inwardly smiling about Paris's eternal grace and sensitivity.


End file.
